Why a Strategy Refresh?

As I write this note, our health system, state, nation and world confront what may be the most challenging time of our generation.

The world is fighting a pandemic the likes we have not seen in a century. Our nation is facing accountability with regard to unresolved racial inequities that have plagued our nation since its founding. And we are confronting an unknown economic impact that may challenge the ways we achieve our core missions in the coming years.

So, as our days are consumed by managing whatever crisis the next hour brings, it seems like a far-off fantasy to be thinking about a “strategic vision for the future.” With all we have to manage today what’s the point in lifting our heads long enough to see to the horizon?

Two words: Resilience and perseverance.

In these uncertain times I am reminded that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. After being a part of the team here at U of U Health for the past two years, I know that we can rely on a few other certainties that are unique to our faculty, students, staff and community: U of U Health has a legacy of innovation that has benefitted patients not just here in Utah but around the world. A distinguishing feature on the national stage is our unmatched culture of collaboration—people working together to advance health and pioneering discoveries in science and medicine, all while training the next generation of health care professionals.

Additionally, we were ready to face the challenges of these times. Our strategy refresh work completed concurrently by the University of Utah and University of Utah Health has fostered greater alignment of our shared direction. Progress and success in one strategy directly reinforce and strengthens the other. The same impact is true as you take up this strategy, amplify it, align to it and enhance our organization at every level.

Our strategic vision for the future is that:

Together as One U, we serve communities and the region, lead education and discovery, and innovate care accountable for outcomes. We believe that communities, partners, and people make us who we are, and we are fully invested in their health, wellness and success.

At U of U Health, we have a unique opportunity to extend this leadership into all areas of health, in turn helping both our population and those beyond our borders.

We invite you all to join us on this journey.

Michael Good

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Michael Good
Senior Vice President, Health Sciences
University of Utah

Strategy Refresh 2020-2025

Strategy refresh work completed concurrently by the University of Utah and University of Utah Health has fostered greater alignment of our strategies. Progress and success in one strategy directly reinforces and strengthens the other.

One U Serve Communities & the Region Education Discovery Innovate Care Accountable for Outcomes

One U

How We Are Advancing

One U

We are a high performing health system and university. We create our highest value when we work together. Rapid changes in the environment require that we make decisions quickly and act nimbly. We will organize to create new value, solve grand challenges, and reach our full potential as an integrated, high-performing organization. Shared governance will help us make correct decisions and carry them out together. We will listen to our patients and employees to gain knowledge from the point of care. As one university, we are both the University of Utah and the University for Utah, achieving excellence in our missions, ensuring vitality for Utah and the region, and serving as a model for the nation.

Outcomes We Seek for 2025

Our Directed Steps in 2020

Deeper Ties

  1. Extend Center for Medical Innovation to South Korea campus.
  2. Enter new partnerships with diverse community leaders.
  3. Refine our community emergency and crisis response protocols.
  4. Strengthen plan to retain and recruit diverse faculty.

New Solutions

  1. Launch professional well-being collaborative workgroup.
  2. Launch Dream Up pilot promoting rural employment.
  3. Manage clinical strategy refresh steps at COVID Finance and Operations Response Team and SVP Executive Team.
  4. Create scholarship/pipeline plan for underrepresented students.

Organizational Excellence

  1. Expand Home for Dinner project to additional providers.
  2. Improve utilization of resilience and decompression resources.
  3. Increase shared understanding and trust among senior leadership teams.
  4. Publish and promote strategy refresh materials across the organization.

Serve Communities & the Region

How We Are Advancing

Service • Engagement • Mission Driven

University of Utah Health is here to serve Utah and the Mountain West as care providers, educators, researchers, partners, advocates, and more. We are an anchor institution in our community. We will further the impact of our work in these roles by connecting our efforts and prioritizing service to communities and people. Service is foundational to our mission to advance health. Communities, partners, and people make us who we are, and we are fully invested in their health, wellness, and success.

Our Directed Steps in 2020

Deeper Ties

  1. Place services in Tooele in partnership with Mtn. West Medical.
  2. With VA, provide specialty care for veterans in South Jordan.
  3. Enhance mental health services in Summit County.
  4. Create provider staffing plan for Primary Children’s campus in Utah County.
  5. Increase mental health screenings and services for college students.

New Solutions

  1. Increase downloads and utilization of SafeUT app.
  2. Prepare and coordinate transition to 3-digit crisis line in Utah.
  3. Launch mental health certificate program for rural Utah providers.
  4. Increase access to psychiatric consults for patients of our maternal and primary care providers.
  5. Start and strengthen engagements with local community stakeholders.

Organizational Excellence

  1. Develop and publish a registry of all our community engagements.
  2. Recruit chair and new faculty to our psychiatry department.
  3. Extend study of trends in prenatal exposure rates to recreational drugs.
  4. Launch initiatives for Huntsman Mental Health Institute.
  5. Adopt one or more Healthcare Anchor Network initiatives.

Education

How We Are Advancing

Collaborative • Innovative • Exceptional

We are driven by a central vision of an exceptional educational experience for all students across all University of Utah Health colleges and schools. Through collaboration and a strong education community, we build student knowledge, skills, and attitudes. We strive for educational impact and transformation. Our educational programs actively engage communities, help address their needs, and prepare students to thrive in real-world environments. We train tomorrow’s health care experts and leaders to succeed in a rapidly changing world.

Outcomes We Seek for 2025

Our Directed Steps in 2020

Deeper Ties

  1. Convene U Health education leaders in a Health Sciences Education Executive Council.
  2. Identify and create a training plan for a common competency for all U of U Health students.
  3. Identify and implement best practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion related to education.
  4. Elucidate what constitutes an exceptional faculty experience.
  5. Partner with advancement to strengthen ties with donors.

New Solutions

  1. Survey U of U Health learners to understand what constitutes an exceptional education experience.
  2. Create coaching program for educational excellence.
  3. Expand the virtual reality team to create innovative skills-based education tools.
  4. Pilot new strategies for increasing outpatient clinical placements for our learners.
  5. Launch Journal of the Academy of Health Sciences Educators.

Organizational Excellence

  1. Convene experiential learning working group to coordinate and enhance efforts.
  2. Define metrics for distinction in education.
  3. Build effective approaches for communication and dissemination of education goals and strategies.
  4. Promote educators based on educational achievements.
  5. Develop an educational space and infrastructure plan.

Discovery

How We Are Advancing

Excellence Across the Research Spectrum

We improve human health for all by advancing biomedical discoveries, innovation, and health care practices. Weaving discovery through all we do amplifies the impact and pace of our combined work and further differentiates us as a leading academic health system.

Outcomes We Seek for 2025

Our Directed Steps in 2020

Deeper Ties

  1. Grow and strengthen our major areas of excellence.
  2. Grow extramural research funding, emphasizing collaborative grants.
  3. Strengthen our research philanthropic planning and activities.
  4. Advance our local research partnerships.
  5. Expand intra-campus collaborations and initiatives, including air quality and data science.

New Solutions

  1. Initiate planning and identify funding for new research buildings.
  2. Finalize plan for Clinical and Translational Science Institute.
  3. Launch first projects in Therapeutics Accelerator.
  4. Develop financing plan to support interdisciplinary collaborations.
  5. Strengthen cutting-edge research technologies in core services.

Organizational Excellence

  1. Optimize use of our existing research space.
  2. Finish plan for institution-wide departmental support of mentorship.
  3. Retain and develop successful researchers.
  4. Strengthen efforts to recruit diverse faculty and trainees.
  5. Initiate oversight structure to strengthen excellence in graduate and postdoctoral training.

Innovate Care

How We Are Advancing

Patient Focused • Accessible • Provier Friendly

We tailor services to the specific needs of each patient and seamlessly move them through our health system. Care is sensitive to patient time and money and is available close to (or at) home with little to no wait. Routine care is often handled virtually on-demand. Growth is sustainable for providers. Care roles are top-of-license and team-based. Diverse, talented professionals come here and stay for their careers.

Outcomes We Seek for 2025

Our Directed Steps in 2020

Deeper Ties

  1. Finalize plan for next ambulatory expansion(s).
  2. Start remote monitoring of high-risk UUHP enrollees.
  3. Begin construction on clinic in Elko.
  4. Finalize terms and nurture our formalized CNS relationship.

New Solutions

  1. Extend virtual follow-up visits to all procedural services.
  2. Complete seamless PCP-specialist handoff pilot at Farmington.
  3. Refine and expand Project Core e-consultations.
  4. Plan the next phase of our destination care programs.
  5. Launch a digital accelerator group to evaluate new technologies.

Organizational Excellence

  1. Reconfigure organization reporting structure to optimize innovation efforts.
  2. Finish design and implement care team impact study at Sugar House.
  3. Assess results of care team pilot in our gastrointestinal clinic.
  4. Improve timely accommodation of urgent care referrals.
  5. Complete plan for on-campus space and capacity management.

Accountable for Outcomes

How We Are Advancing

Value • Experience • Population Health

University of Utah Health is firmly established as one of the nation’s highest value academic health centers, a top performer in quality, safety, and caring. We seek the next phase of our ambition: becoming directly accountable for our choices and their outcomes.

Outcomes We Seek for 2025

Our Directed Steps in 2020

Deeper Ties

  1. Increase enrollment in our diabetes prevention service through new screening and EHR tools.
  2. Work with patients with chronic conditions to learn how to better coordinate care for them.
  3. Work with insurers on shared quality and accountability initiatives.
  4. Expand health coaching to more patients with chronic conditions.

New Solutions

  1. Develop a population health service with employers, including our Silicon Slopes partners.
  2. Pilot point-of-care integration of our patient reported outcomes.
  3. Launch our Medicare Advantage plan.
  4. Pilot care plans for our primary care patients identified with depression.

Organizational Excellence

  1. Finalize an integrated, comprehensive care plan for patients with elevated socioeconomic and clinical risks.
  2. Improve timely access for referrals and reduce internal referrals sent outside University of Utah Health.
  3. Deploy our patient-centric dashboard to help make it easier to be a patient at University of Utah Health.
  4. Deploy our practice-centric dashboard to help optimize growth of our departments.
  5. Increase online scheduling of appointments.

Together as One U, we serve communites and the region, lead education and discovery, and innovate care accountable for outcomes.

Communities, partners, and people make us who we are, and we are fully invested in their health, wellness and success.